Help! Unscalable Airtable/GSheet records/row limit, any solutions please?

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#1

Hi, after spending 1mo. and hours on Soft frontend and Airtable backend, just saw that:

  1. Airtable has unscaleable 250k records/base limit (and that’s on the unquoted, highest Enterprise plan where you have to schedule w/ sales to get a quote) and

  2. GSheets has unscaleable 357k rows/sheet limit (even if GSheet integration worked right now and I only had 1 field column per record/sheet instead of actual 28 field columns, that’d still only be 1M records/rows per sheet).

This makes Softr not a viable/startup-friendly option as it’d not only require double the work of re-doing the entire frontend and “backend” upon the 250k-358k records limit, as 1) I can’t be sending/splitting user registrations between multiple sheets/bases, and 2) the whole use-case of my app is being able to search/filter the user directory, but it might likely mean losing all of the user data, because no way to tell how much of it is manually transferrable/migrate-able to any scaleable database solution. This also makes the “unlimited records per dynamic block” Softr enterprise feature seem like false advertising.

Really don’t want to call the past month’s of work a loss and have to start from 0 all over again, is there any potential AWS/other database/integration/custom code that I can use for backend instead with Softr, or do I really have to search alternatives/hire someone to code from scratch? Many thanks!

#2

Hello!

Wouldn’t most of your tech stack will require enterprise plans when you reach enterprise levels of scale?

If Airtable costs $20/user per 50k rows, then 5 million rows could presumably cost $2,000/month.

Typically, the enterprise plans scale at a cheaper cost per unit than the quoted public pricing.

#3

Hi, again, their max limit on the highest enterprise plan is 250k records/rows per base. I can’t split my user database between multiples bases/sheets, that’s illogical from a setting up/splitting standpoint (manually monitoring when limit reached, editing Airtable connection in Softr Users Panel + remapping 5 fields there + user registration form’s 18 fields in time before any lost users) and impossible from display/search/filter standpoint (I can’t show/search multiple bases as “one user directory,” nor should such be an “option”), any other ideas appreciated, many thanks!

#4

Hi,
This is something that was discussed a lot with other members.

First question is: What is the state of your business? Early stage? Proof of concept? MVP?

Second question is: what is your current number of records?

Possible answers:

  1. You think of scalability and you are far away from it. Here, you’re asking yourself the wrong question and iterate is not part of your plan (and this is going to be an issue at some point, as a business needs to grow step by step)
    Solution: Softr will handle REST API this year. This would let you use other database (and real backends) like Xano, Supabase or others.

  2. If your current business uses a lot of records, (some businesses, even early stage, need a huge amount of records, but that is very rare).
    There, different options: you have to handle some record deletions (that is part of managing a tech stack, full code or no-code) periodically and/or re-design your database structure, which may not be adapted to what you do.
    Other possibility is to succeed to plug a self-hosted backend in Softr, which requires strong tech skills. I think some members, months ago talked about it, but I’m not sure, I can’t find the thread.
    Other solution: How we used Postgres with Softr to help our business teams

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